UN Security Council Holds Debate on Middle East

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Crisis in Middle East:
UN Security Council Holds Debate on Middle East
UN Human Rights Commissioner Calls for Sending International Monitors
UAE Sends Urgent Assistance to Palestinian People
Statement by MEP Anna Karamanou on the Present Crisis in Middle East
Demonstration in Turkey in Support of Palestine

US and Britain in Violation of International Law

Russia Surrounded with US Military Bases

On April 3, delegates from close to 60 countries spoke in a one-day debate in the UN Security Council on the situation in the Middle East.

"The Israeli authorities have so insolently declared that the Israeli attacks will continue for weeks," Ambassador Nasser Al-Kidwa, the Permanent Observer for Palestine, told the Council session, which was convened on the request of the Arab Group and the Non-Aligned Movement. "This will lead us to a point of no return," he warned. Al-Kidwa called on the international community to "decisively reject" Israel's actions, adding: "Our position against all terrorist attacks, including the explosions in Israel is clear and explicit – we condemn them in their entirety, but Israel remains an occupation force." Israel's actions were sanctioned by the state, he said, while the Palestinian Authority had condemned terrorist acts in Israel, considering them contrary to Palestinian national interests. The Security Council, he noted, must see to it that its resolutions were implemented immediately, as that was the only way to put an end to the violence and resume efforts for peace. The Council must consider how to push peace forward, including through the presence of an international third party monitoring body to help implement the understandings reached by the Director of the US Central Intelligence Agency, George Tenet, and the recommendations made by a committee chaired by former US Senator George Mitchell, Nasser Al-Kidwa said.

Israeli Ambassador Yehuda Lancry "called attention to the deadly suicide bombings that had been taking place in the country in recent days", the UN news agency reported. Israel was prepared to fully implement the Council's recent resolutions, he said, including its call for a genuine cessation of hostilities, terrorism and incitement and full implementation of the Tenet Plan and the Mitchell report.

On the evening of April 2, the Council held two back-to-back formal private meetings on the Middle East – the first with Ambassador Lancry, and the second one with Ambassador Al-Kidwa. According to a UN spokesman, during each session, the Representative of Israel and the Observer of Palestine made opening statements, which were followed by an interactive question-and-answer period with the members of the Council.

Reacting to the escalating death toll in the Middle East, United Nations Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson called on the Geneva-based UN Commission on Human Rights to consider immediately sending a mission to the occupied Palestinian territories in order to gather information and make recommendations on a future course of action.

"The last days have brought a frightening increase in the loss of life," Mary Robinson said. "Would it not be right for this Commission to dispatch immediately a visiting mission that would travel to the area and return expeditiously to the Commission with their finding and recommendations?" she asked. She added that the protection of human rights would require such a step "as a very minimum". Mary Robinson also recalled that following her visit to the region in 2000 she had asked that the feasibility of establishing an international monitoring presence be explored. "That proposal should now be implemented," she said. "International observers on the ground can be a deterrent to the violations of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories and also can promote human security."

Mary Robinson painted a grim picture of the deteriorating conditions in the region, noting that hundreds of Palestinians have reportedly been arrested, while movement in all the areas of military operations, including Ramallah, Beit Jala, Qalqilya, Tulkarm and Bethlehem, remained "extremely dangerous". She also cited reports indicating that the Palestinian Red Crescent Society was unable to provide evacuation for the injured in any conflict areas, and that medical personnel were being arrested.

In New York, the French UN ambassador, Jean-David Levitte, said, "France has long been in favour of the deployment of international observers." He added, "Perhaps we should go further, and seriously consider the deployment of an interposition force to help with the implementation of the Security Council resolutions. The question deserves to be asked."

Switzerland also demanded the deployment of an international peace force in the Palestinian occupied lands.

The President of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, has ordered the UAE Red Crescent Society (RCS) to send urgent assistance to the Palestinian people, the news agency WAM reported on Thursday. "Sheikh Zayed has instructed the RCS to focus and centre all its programmes at the moment on delivering urgent assistance to the Palestinians. Means of delivering aid to those facing hunger and lack of medicine should be explored," said Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and Chairman of the RCS.

Sheikh Zayed also ordered immediate implementation of his grant to sponsor 5,000 Palestinian orphans through the RCS. Sheikh Hamdan, who chaired the RCS Board of Directors meeting, stressed the gravity of the situation in the occupied territories, and urged RCS officials to redouble efforts to send aid through Egypt or Jordan, in co-ordination with other humanitarian organisations. Meanwhile, the UAE reiterated its steadfast support for the Palestinian people and that it stands ready to provide all that is required in support of the legitimate Palestinian resistance against the Israeli occupation.

Anna Karamanou, Chairperson of the Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities Committee of the European Parliament, made the following statement:

In my capacity as a Chairperson of the Women's Rights Committee and Equal Opportunities of the European Parliament, I would like to express my deepest concern on the present crisis in Middle East, a region ravaged daily by an escalation of violence, with the loss of many civilian lives, including women and children.

In this framework, I urge the Israeli government to abide by the UN Security Council's Resolutions 1397 and 1402 and to immediately end its incursions into Palestinian territories and its attacks against the Palestinian National Authority and its President Yassir Arafat. The Palestinian people are today the victims of an unacceptable and unfair punishment that deprives them of a sovereign, safe, peaceful and democratic State.

I strongly condemn all indiscriminate terrorist attacks by suicide bombings against civilians.

As a Member of the Party of European Socialists, I would like to see the Israeli Labour Party leave the Sharon government, which has given up the path of peace and is following a logic of war.

I express my full support for the Israelis, Palestinians and the European citizens working for peace at every possible level.

I express my full solidarity to women from Palestine and Israel who "march against the War".

Thousands of workers and trade unionists protested on April 3 in Istanbul against the massacres directed towards the Palestinians by Israel. Slogans such as "Murderer Sharon, Murderer Bush", "The People of Palestine are not Alone" were chanted with great anger and an end to all economic, military and political relations between Turkey and Israel was demanded.

Gathering together at a distance of about 1 km from the Israeli Embassy in Istanbul, more than 3,000 workers marched to the front of the Embassy, which was protected by the police forces with their tanks throughout the march. The demonstrators continued shouting slogans on reaching the Embassy.

Reading the joint press release on behalf of the workers and the trade unionists Levent Dokuyucu, Branch Chair of Communication Workers Union Branch No. 1, stated that occupying the lands of Palestine, Israel is carrying out indiscriminate genocide. Condemning the state of siege of the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Dokuyucu said: "US President Bush is showing who the real force behind the massacre and the occupation is by saying, 'Israel has the right to defend itself'."

Expressing that the Turkish workers are on the side of the Palestinians while those running the country are signing military agreements with the US and Israel to the disadvantage of the people of the Middle East, Dokuyucu continued: "The latest disastrous event is the signing of an agreement for tank modernisation worth 1 quadrillion Turkish Liras with Israel at the same time as Arafat's headquarters were being bombarded. This cannot have any other meaning besides complete support for war. Prime Minister Ecevit and Foreign Minister Ismail Cem's statements are nothing but hypocrisy."

Levent Dokuyucu also demanded the annulment of all economical, political and military bi- and multi- lateral agreements signed with Israel as well as stating that Turkey should suspend all its diplomatic relations with Israel. Expressing the necessity for the people of Turkey to be in solidarity with the people of Palestine, Dokuyucu emphasised that the protests would not end with this demonstration but will continue in work-places, factories and on the streets.

The United States is increasingly violating and undermining major international security treaties in what a new US study calls a slide away from rule of law toward the rule of power.

Sponsored by two non-profit groups, the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research and the Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy, the 188-page report analyses the US response to eight major international agreements, including the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

"The United States has violated, compromised or acted to undermine in some crucial way every treaty that we have studied in detail," said Nicole Deller, principal editor and co-author of the report, entitled "Rule of Power or Rule of Law".

The study determined that the United States "not only refuses to participate in newly created international legal mechanisms, it fails to live up to obligations undertaken in treaties that it has ratified". It charges that Washington is "drifting away from regarding treaties as an essential element in global security to a more opportunistic stand of abiding by treaties only when it is convenient". This includes the 1970 Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty that bars most states from acquiring nuclear arms and commits treaty signers that do possess them – Russia, China, Britain, France and the United States – to negotiate their elimination. In the meantime, the nuclear states are mandated under the NPT to not use such arms against non-nuclear states.

The study determined that the Bush administration is undermining the NPT because it intends that new reductions in strategic weapons as part of an agreement with Russia can be reversed, if needed, and because its new Nuclear Posture Review "expands options for using nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states".

Although the United States has signed and ratified the NPT, the US Senate refused to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and Bush has made clear he has no intention of asking for reconsideration. Bush recently announced plans for US withdrawal from the 1972 ABM Treaty on national security grounds but the study said this reasoning "stretches credibility beyond the limit".

On the Chemical Weapons Convention banning such arms, limits imposed by the US Congress amount to a "refusal to comply with terms of the treaty", the report said. Washington was also faulted on its approach to the Biological Weapons Convention banning biological arms, the Kyoto Protocol curbing greenhouse gases, the International Criminal Court and the treaty banning antipersonnel land mines.

Nicole Deller, a lawyer, said that a recent US policy shift "towards greater reliance on military force, including nuclear weapons, as the main component for securing the people of the United States from a variety of threats sets a dangerous course and a poor example".

The report said that "over the long term, treaty regimes are a far more reliable basis for achieving global policy objectives and compliance with norms than 'do as we say, not as we do' directives from an overwhelmingly powerful state."

Legal Experts on War against Iraq

If US President George W. Bush extends his "war on terror" to strike against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, he will not just be walking into a military minefield, he might be breaking the law according to British legal experts. They say that, without a new United Nations Security Council resolution explicitly backing the use of force, the justification for strikes against Baghdad is at best shaky.

"Legally we would be perfectly entitled to use force as we have done in the past without the support of a United Nations Security Council resolution," British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon said last month. In fact, legal authorities say that is unclear whether the law is on the side of Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair.

At issue are two questions – whether the Gulf War cease-fire allows a resumption of conflict if Iraq fails to co-operate, and whether pre-emptive action can be justified to avert a military threat or humanitarian disaster.

UN Security Council resolution 687, adopted shortly after a US-led coalition expelled Iraqi forces from Kuwait in March 1991, formally brought hostilities to a close. It also demanded that Iraq destroy all its weapons of mass destruction.

"The cease-fire is clearly conditional on Iraq doing certain things. If Iraq is in violation of those terms then the cease-fire is called into question," said Adam Roberts, professor of international relations at Oxford University.

"There is no provision for enforcement in the resolution which authorises states to carry out military action," said Durham University's Professor Colin Warbrick. "It's for the Security Council to decide what action to take."

The justification for military strikes as self-defence – invoked in Afghanistan – or as part of a humanitarian intervention as in NATO's 1999 Kosova campaign and Britain's deployment to Sierra Leone a year later, is also disputed.

"The argument is not to alleviate a humanitarian tragedy in Iraq but to make it comply with the United Nations, or in a broader context...that it is prevented in engaging in terrorism," said Warbrick.

The self-defence argument was "too remote" because Washington could not convincingly portray Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction as an immediate threat, he added.

The same questions have been raised about sporadic punitive air strikes against Iraq since 1991 and the "no-fly zones" over northern and southern Iraq patrolled by US and British pilots.

The two countries say the zones, set up without a specific UN mandate, were justified on humanitarian grounds to prevent Saddam persecuting Shiites in the south and Kurds in the north.

"To maintain this justification over what is now literally a decade, one would need to demonstrate that there are populations in danger of imminent destruction and that this measure is strictly necessary to avert that danger," said Marc Weller of the Centre of International Studies at Cambridge University.

"There has not even been a serious attempt over recent years to make this argument," Weller said, adding that pilots' rules of engagement had been widened to include attacks on targets which appeared to pose no threat to their patrols.

In contrast, a senior diplomat argued in a foreign policy pamphlet in March that there was a powerful case for active intervention to address security threats and that sometimes Western countries would have to break the rules.

"Among ourselves, we operate on the basis of laws and open co-operative security," said Robert Cooper. "But when dealing with more old-fashioned kinds of states outside the post-modern continent of Europe, we need to revert to rougher methods of an earlier era – force, pre-emptive attack, deception," he wrote. "Among ourselves, we keep the law but when we are operating in the jungle, we must also use the laws of the jungle".

An article by Mikhail Khodarenok in the Russian Nezavisimoye Voennoye Obozreniye points out that the United States and NATO, which have now established a bridgehead in Central Asia, continue to expand their military presence on former Soviet territory, and emphasises the geo-political importance of some CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) countries in terms of the South-West Asian and Mideastern balance of forces. The article comments:

Central Asia – The Intermediate Result

The Central Asian heartland has never seen such a multi-national US-European troop contingent since the epic expeditions of Alexander the Great. A tactical group of the third British mechanised division (400 soldiers, all told) is now stationed in Kabul. A tactical group of a German airborne brigade numbering 200 soldiers is also located there. Add to this units of an Italian infantry regiment (100 soldiers), a 300-strong French armoured-cavalry regiment, a Spanish military unit numbering 50 soldiers, a joint 150-strong German-Dutch unit, as well as up to 300 US Marines. Apart from that, US and NATO military units are stationed in Kandahar. The US Army's 101st air-assault division has contributed 1,000 soldiers. A 1,500-strong expeditionary USMC (United States Marine Corps) battalion is also staying there. Moreover, 100 British and 300 Canadian soldiers are stationed in Kandahar. 100 soldiers serving with US special forces have settled down in Herat; yet another 200-strong American SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) unit is based in Shindand. Meanwhile 400 soldiers from the US Army's 10th light-infantry division, as well as a 600-strong battalion of British Marines, are stationed in Baghram. All in all, ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) in Afghanistan comprises the following national troop contingents – Great Britain, 2,000 soldiers; France, 500 soldiers; Germany, 900 soldiers; Norway, 100 soldiers; Italy, 100 soldiers; Turkey, 200 soldiers; Denmark, 200 soldiers; Jordan, 500 soldiers. As of today, about 12,000 soldiers, including 8,000 Americans and about 1,000 Canadians, are involved in the Afghan counter-terrorist operation.

US and NATO military installations on the territory of former Soviet Central Asian republics are instrumental in providing logistics support for multi-national forces and their operations. As is known, the United States and NATO have reliably asserted themselves at Uzbek, Kirghiz and Tajik bases, i.e. Manas (Bishkek), Karshi, Kulyab, Kokaidy and Termez. All these airfields were to have been used for re-supply missions, for transporting humanitarian relief aid and for deploying search-and-rescue units. However, the first few French Mirage-2000 fighters have landed in Manas not so long ago. Until then, reconnaissance aircraft, including Predator drones, used to operate rather actively from all bases in the interests of the US-NATO air-force formation being used against Al-Qaida units.

Moreover, ranger units, AWACS-type aircraft, psychological-warfare and reconnaissance planes were deployed there.

The appearance of Mirage-2000 fighters is seen as yet another US-NATO military build-up phase in this region. One has every reason to believe that this move is not some isolated occurrence, and that it highlights a certain trend instead. Few obstacles impede now the conversion of former Soviet military bases into full-fledged Western outposts. Among other things, the stockpiling of aircraft fuel and weapons is seen as the most labour-consuming process, which requires more time to complete than all other processes. Nonetheless, all local airfields could be used for sustaining the most determined attacks, once this process is complete.

The Second Asian Wave

The article continues:

Quite possibly, after gaining a foot-hold in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kirghizia, the United States will be sorely tempted to spread its military presence over Kazakhstan, which looms over the whole of Central Asia like some kind of a tremendous horse-shoe. The US side will, most likely, establish control over former Soviet air-force bases in Taldy-Kurgan, Zhangiz-Tobe, Semipalatinsk, Zhana-Semei and the Alma-Ata airfield junction (i.e. the south-eastern axis), for openers. The Americans will most likely be acting in line with time-tested methods; if necessary, US specialists will upgrade the local tarmac, subsequently improving radio-technical landing aids and beacons in line with NATO standards. Kazakh airfields will then be used by NATO cargo aircraft, with military planes arriving later on.

A paradoxical and hitherto unthinkable situation can shape up, when Russian military installations in Kazakhstan, i.e. an early-warning radio-technical facility on cape Gulshad (Lake Balkhash), the Saryshagan ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile) testing range, as well as state-run testing range No. 5 in Baikonur, find themselves surrounded with NATO military bases. Moreover, it can't be excluded that Russia might have to co-ordinate all military shipments to these facilities with both local authorities, as well as US and NATO representatives. Some people may think this forecast is too fantastic and pessimistic.

However, it should be reminded that some Kremlin high-placed officials had also perceived any possible US military presence in Central Asia as a non-viable hypothesis not so long ago.

Right now, a relatively small US troop contingent is stationed in Georgia. Technically speaking, US servicemen would be expected to render military-technical assistance in organising several Georgian SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) battalions.

Tbilisi subsequently intends to use such units for fighting terrorist groups and in order to enhance Georgia's territorial integrity. How feasible is this task? Our article doesn't aim to discuss this issue; however, several world-class units boasting state-of-the-art weaponry might eventually constitute the new Georgian army's nucleus.

Baku and Counter-Terrorist Plans

The article continues:

Azerbaijan, which borders on Iran, is regarded as a convenient air-force base for tactical US and NATO warplanes, that is, if Washington and Brussels decide to go ahead with a possible counter-terrorist operation, attacking Iran in the process. As of today, Washington considers Iran to be the bulwark of international terrorism. In this case former Soviet first-category air-force bases in Kyurdamir and Nasosnaya (Pumping Station) will prove to be a highly valuable asset for the United States. Sure enough, their current state leaves a lot to be desired. However, the US side, which boasts tremendous resources, can upgrade these two bases in no time at all. If necessary, the United States and NATO could also use the international airport in Baku. However, all these airfields can accommodate no more than 90-100 tactical aircraft, reconnaissance planes and flying tankers. Nonetheless, even this number is enough to conduct limited air strikes and to seriously threaten theoretical enemies from the northern axis.

The Results

The article goes on to comment:

On the one hand, Russia stands to gain a lot from that US blitzkrieg on Afghan territory. The Taleban "thorn", which could have entailed "sepsis" and even "death" for the entire Central Asia, as well as utterly unpredictable consequences for the Russian Federation's southern flank, has now been almost pulled out. Analysts are inclined to think that extremist groups are highly unlikely to re-assert themselves in Afghanistan and newly independent Central Asian countries in the foreseeable future. On the other hand, though, there can be no power vacuum in regional politics. Moscow perceives Russia's withdrawal from the geo-political scene in the obtaining situation as a painful inevitability. Meanwhile the appearance of a new Central Asian leader is perceived as an objective necessity because regional countries might otherwise plunge into bloody small wars.

The article comments that the United States has obtained more benefits than all other countries, gaining access to the immense regional natural resources. Moscow stands to gain from NATO's Central Asian military presence after the successful operation against the Taleban, it says. However, such military presence would provide some dubious advantages in the foreseeable future. Washington acquires powerful leverage for influencing subsequent Russian political aspirations in line with any possible scenario, thus reducing Moscow's manoeuvring room on the global political scene still further. Quite possibly, this constitutes the main result of America's penetration into this hitherto walled-in strategic region. The second stage of expanded NATO military presence on former Soviet territory couldn't but evoke serious irritation on the Kremlin's part from the very outset. Washington then made some soothing statements. However, Moscow lacks any real-life military-economic leverage for influencing the situation.